Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Spotify has removed the music and profiles of several Russian artists who support the Ukraine invasion and have been sanctioned by the European Union and elsewhere in the West, Billboard has confirmed. The removals were first reported by The Moscow Times. “Platform Rules clearly state that we take action when we identify content which explicitly […]
An American musician with the Russian rock group LoviNoch (Catch the Night) has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to media reports.
Michael Travis Leake, whose Instagram account identifies him as the band’s singer (his last post was on Feb. 3), is suspected of selling mephedrone, a drug with similar effects to cocaine and MDMA, CNN and the Associated Press reported, citing Russian media reports and a statement on Telegram from a Moscow.
Leake faces charges for the distribution or production of drugs, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. A Moscow court has ordered him to be held for two months in pre-trial detention, the reports say.
CNN reported that Russian media outlets, including Ren TV, a tabloid outlet, published a video of Leake’s arrest at his home and a mug shot from a Russian police station on Thursday (June 8). “I don’t understand why I’m here. I don’t admit guilt, I don’t believe I could have done what I’m accused of because I don’t know what I’m accused of,” Leake reportedly said.
A former paratrooper with the U.S. military who has lived in Moscow since 2010, Leake appeared on a 2014 episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown in Moscow and St. Petersburg after being handpicked by Bourdain to appear on the show. In the episode, he half-joked that the KGB was listening in on their conversation and tailing Bourdain.
The episode’s producer, Darya Tarasova, told CNN that Leake and his friends were vocal critics of Russian state censorship and advocates for free speech in the country.
The U.S. State Department confirmed Leake’s detention in a statement sent to Billboard, with a spokesperson writing, “The Department of State takes seriously its commitment to assist U.S. citizens abroad. It is our standard practice to reach out to the families of U.S. citizens detained overseas as soon as we are provided permission by the individual. We have attempted to reach out to Mr. Leake’s family. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance to Mr. Leake and his family.”
On Sunday, the State Department told CNN that U.S. embassy officials had attended Leake’s arraignment the day prior. “We will continue to monitor the case closely,” a State Department spokesperson told the outlet.
Leake is the latest American to be detained by Russian officials since the country’s military forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Punitive economic sanctions by the United States and its Western allies have further strained tensions with Russia.
In another drug-related case, WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested the month of the invasion after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage at a Moscow airport. A Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison, but she was released in December in exchange for U.S.-imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
And in March, Russian officials detained Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, accusing him of espionage, which he denies. On May 23, a Russian court extended his arrest by three months.
LONDON — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a rapid exodus of global music companies from Russia. All three major labels say they ceased operations there. So did touring giant Live Nation and streaming platforms Spotify, TikTok, Deezer and Amazon Music. Paris-headquartered Believe, however, publicly pursued a different path, and a year later is still operating in Russia — releasing, distributing and promoting new music by local artists and labels on Russian streaming platforms Yandex. Plus, VK Music and Zvuk.
Executives at rival music companies have privately expressed outrage, accusing Believe of exploiting the sudden breakup of Russia’s music market — the 13th largest in 2021, generating $328 million in revenue that year, according to IFPI — to gain market share in the absence of Western competitors.
Denis Ladegaillerie, Believe’s founder and CEO, denies that charge and says the major labels and platforms are being hypocritical for criticizing how the French company is operating in Russia. Believe’s ongoing presence in the country “is really not an economic decision,” he tells Billboard in a rare interview addressing the issue. “We are not looking at building or growing or extracting value [in Russia].”
Following the start of hostilities, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group said they stopped distributing and promoting new releases in Russia. If new titles are being made available on local streaming services, the majors say, it’s through piracy.
The Believe CEO is skeptical about those assertions and defends his company’s continued presence in the isolated nation. “What I see is that all global artists are still available on all local platforms [in Russia],” Ladegaillerie says, noting that YouTube and Apple Music are also still active in the market, albeit in a reduced capacity. “So, my question is: ‘You’ve pulled out of Russia? Really?’”
After Billboard discovered in December that Russian streaming service VK was allowing users to upload albums from major label artists like Taylor Swift (UMG’s Republic Records) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Warner Music), all three major labels declined to comment; labels body IFPI did not condemn the apparent copyright violations, nor confirm if they or its label members had issued takedown orders to VK.
Ladegaillerie says Believe, for its part, has “very strictly” abided by all international sanctions placed against Russia since the start of the war — “both in law and spirit” — and has halted all new investments in the now-isolated country. “Our No. 1 priority, both in Russia and Ukraine, has been to protect our teams locally and support our artists,” he says.
Despite those claims, Believe’s revenue from Russia, where it retains just over 40 employees, has been growing. Combined revenue from Russia and Ukraine rose 9.9% to 57 million euros ($62.5 million) in 2022, according to the company’s year-end financial figures. (That was 7.5% of Believe’s overall revenue.)
While the economic sanctions against Russia were meant to starve the country of funds and further isolate it from the world financial system, they have been limited in scope and hundreds of Western companies continue to operate in the country. Global music companies have not completely extracted themselves from the country, either. Universal Music and Warner Music — which had the largest presence in Russia among the majors, with almost 100 employees — continue to pay their staff and maintain offices there, although they say those offices have been effectively closed since the war started.
In September, Sony Music announced it had decided “to exit the Russian marketplace completely” and was transferring its Sony Music entity there to a fully independent local company that would only represent locally signed artists. “As the war continues to have a devastating humanitarian impact in Ukraine, and sanctions on Russia continue to increase, we can no longer maintain a presence in Russia, effective immediately,” Sony Music said in a statement at the time.
YouTube continues to operate in Russia in compliance with U.S. sanctions but has suspended ads and monetization features (Russian creators can still make money from ads and other monetization products shown to users outside of the country). The Russian subsidiary of YouTube parent company Google filed for bankruptcy last year after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay employees, suppliers and vendors, a YouTube spokesperson tells Billboard.
Apple Music is still available in Russia, although there are fewer subscription payment options, as MasterCard and Visa cards issued by Russian banks can no longer be used to pay for subscriptions. Music from the major labels that left Russia is not available. (An Apple Music spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.)
The French government of President Emmanuel Macron, for its part, has supported Believe’s decision to “maintain links” with Russia, Ladegaillerie says. That rings true for other French companies, which established deep ties with Russia in the wake of the Cold War. In March, French retailer Auchan said it planned to open a new store in Russia, doubling down on its brick-and-mortar presence in the market. And auto maker Renault, which is 15%-owned by the French state, has been scrambling to restart its assembly lines in Russia, where it owns the country’s biggest car maker, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In fact, French companies are among Russia’s biggest foreign employers, providing more than 150,000 jobs across a range of sectors that include energy, food products and wholesaling, according to figures from the French Economy Ministry.
The situation “is not black and white, it’s grey,” Ladegaillerie says. He identifies Believe’s humanitarian support for Ukraine — which includes donations and regularly publishing a playlist of Ukrainian artists — as part of the “difficult” balance his company is trying to maintain in Eastern Europe. “We realized that different countries have different perspectives on the situation but that’s really the line that we are trying to navigate.”
Additional Reporting By Vladimir Kozlov
Kalush Orchestra, the Ukrainian act that captured the world’s attention last year when it won the Eurovision Song Contest as its country was being torn apart by war, wraps up a second North American tour on March 16 with a performance at SXSW in Austin.
The seven-member group’s song “Stefania” won Eurovision in Turin, Italy, with a record-setting 438 points from the public, reflecting the widespread pro-Ukraine sentiment at least year’s event three months after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion.
After the competition, Kalush Orchestra did an 18-show promotional tour, with performances in Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and at Glastonbury Festival in the U.K., before embarking on a 13-city North American tour. The shows helped raise funds for the Ukrainian armed forces. The group also sold its Eurovision trophy for $900,000, with the proceeds earmarked for the purchase of combat drones for Ukraine’s military. (The band raised $1.6 million overall.)
The current five-city U.S. jog cements the group as one of the few Eurovision winners to turn a victory at the pan-European competition into global success, following in the footsteps of ABBA, which won with “Waterloo” in 1974, and Måneskin, which triumphed with “Zitti e Buoni” in 2021. Billboard talked to the Kalush Orchestra’s founder and leader, rapper Oleh Psiuk, via Zoom about returning to the U.S., the impact of Eurovision on the band’s career and the ongoing war with Russia, which is now in its second year.
BB: Who came up with the idea for this new tour?
First, we were invited to the big showcase festival SXSW in Austin. We considered it to be a very cool opportunity, so we decided we should show our creativity, our works and of course we decided that then we could visit several cities which we’ve never been to in the U.S. before. That’s how our new tour was born, even though the previous one was just five months ago.
What was that first tour like and what would you like to see this time?
We had 18 concerts during the previous tour, and they were daily, so unfortunately, we saw only airports and the venues where we had those concerts. But still, we had a little bit of time to see sunny Los Angeles. L.A. is my favorite because I’ve always been listening to the music and to the performers from that area. And this time I do hope we’ll have more time to see and enjoy your country.
What performers from the West Coast are your favorites?
I love the performers from the so-called Golden Era. Like N.W.A, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. I listen to lots of music from the West Coast.
Last time you met Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he appeared in your video for ‘Generous Evening’ and spoke in Ukrainian. Are there any plans this time to meet any celebrities or government figures?
We don’t have any plans now, but honestly speaking we didn’t have any plans then as well. We wrote to Arnold that very day when we met and that was a lucky coincidence. So we do hope that this time we’ll also have such a day when we write to someone famous and we’ll have an opportunity to meet.
In the U.S., Eurovision is not that well known, though the Will Ferrell film (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) has helped increase awareness. How did American audiences find you on your first tour?
The bigger part of our audience was still Ukrainians who are living in the U.S. But there were other people who were coming to our concerts. The people who knew Eurovision, what it is, or people who just saw some announcement or billboard in the city and they decided to see us. They were just curious to get to know who we are, but after the concert, all kinds of people came up to us because they really loved it.
What are the main goals you want to accomplish for both the band and Ukraine?
First, we would like to show our music, for it to be known both in the U.S. and in Europe. Whatever city we visit, we’d like to perform and disseminate Ukrainian culture, for it to be well known anywhere. And, of course, we are raising money using the QR codes and the auctions. Last year, we raised 60 million hryvnia ($1.6 million) and we do hope to raise even more this time.
What does the money you raise support?
We send this money to some of the well-known foundations like United24 and the Sergey Prytula Foundation. And we buy armored vests and helmets and other important things for our war servicemen and military.
Kalush Orchestra
Katrin Oleynik
How do you feel when you’re out of your country? Does the trauma of the war continue?
Honestly speaking, it does not affect me. It does not influence me whether I’m in Ukraine or not, because there are lots of relatives and my parents and close friends, my good acquaintances who are now in Ukraine and I would say that I worry for them more than for myself. Because I don’t worry about myself that much. Obviously, I carry this burden with me everywhere and this kind of anxiety for them.
Let’s talk about what American audiences can expect on this current tour. Will you play new songs?
Yes. We have prepared a program which includes some of the new songs and some of the ones which have just been issued. For instance, we just issued a very new song which has the title “Changes.” It’s a very cool song with a cool video, which reflects all the changes which we are waiting for. We have a program which unites something authentic with some new styles.
Will an album be coming out soon?
So far, we plan to release singles. If we speak about the album coming out, it is planned closer to the end of the current year or maybe in the beginning of the next year. So far, we are issuing singles with cool videos in English.
It’s been not quite a year since you won Eurovision. How has your life changed, and the career trajectory of the band changed since?
We can now play a bigger role. We can have more impact on the bigger and vaster audience. We can disseminate our concert abroad and we can cover a broader audience with that. We can tell more about Ukrainian culture abroad.
That must have been an important reason for participating in Eurovision in the first place.
Yes, there were many reasons. Not only this one, but it was so important for us to win at this Eurovision, because victory is so important for Ukraine in every aspect. We made lots of people happy with this victory and we do hope it will go on like this.
Ukraine first won Eurovision in 2004 when Ruslana triumphed with “Wild Dances.” Where were you that year when she won? What did her victory mean to you and Ukraine?
I was only 10 years old then, so I don’t remember that much. But I do remember that it was a big noise, a big event in Ukraine. It had a huge resonance as an event. It was because Eurovision for Ukraine was always a very important competition.
What is next for the band after the American tour? Will there be any more touring in other countries?
Sure. We would like to get to as many of various festivals as possible to show our music and culture to the maximum. We would like to have as productive a year as the previous one was, to raise as much money and to disseminate information about us, about Ukraine.
The Kalush Orchestra’s 2023 U.S. tour dates:
March 9 — Cleveland, OH @ Cleveland Masonic
March 10 — Orlando, FL @ The Beacham
March 11 — Detroit, MI @ The Magic Stick
March 12 — Atlanta, GA @ District Atlanta
March 16 — Austin, TX @ SXSW
At the Eurovision 2023 Song Contest in May, 37 countries will participate, but only one nation is sending their act to the competition in Liverpool while their country is fighting a war. Tvorchi, the electronic music duo from Ukraine, has been recording and rehearsing while their homeland is under attack by forces commanded by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the weeks of early preparation and national competitions, the duo – producer Andrii (Andrew) Hutsuliak and vocalist Jimoh Augustus Kehinde (a.k.a. Jeffery Kenny) – ran from shelter to shelter to avoid unpredictable drone and missile strikes and weathered intermittent electricity outages. And while most countries vying for the Eurovision crown hold their national finals in theaters or arenas, Ukraine’s live broadcast for the 2023 contest took place in December at an underground metro station that has been used as a bomb shelter, with trains passing on both sides of the stage.
“We didn’t imagine this might happen, that any minute you could be killed by missiles,” co-founder Hutsuliak tells Billboard via Zoom. “In the first week of war, we had a lot of emotions, and we transferred all those emotions into how we can help our country and how to be more productive.”
The war affected the participation of Tvorchi (“creative” in Ukrainian) in Ukraine’s national final to determine which song would go to Eurovision, forcing the duo to do some recordings in shelters “There are the times we just grab the equipment and to go to the shelter and wait for the air (sirens) to turn off,” he says. During Tvorchi’s preparations in Kyiv, one day they were shooting video when an alarm sounded signaling a drone strike and missile attack, recalls Hutsuliak. “We ran to the shelter and were sitting there for four hours.”
With many power plants destroyed by Russian attacks, Ukrainian officials have conserved electricity by periodically shutting it off. “When you hear the alarm and the missiles strike, the electricity can go off,” says Hutsuliak. “We look for generators and big power banks where you can plug your laptop in there and charge your devices and go on.”
Since winning Ukraine’s national final, Tvorchi has focused on preparing its music and trying to tune out the dangerous conditions that threaten their lives. “We’re not physically participating in rehearsals yet,” says Hutsuliak. “We’re trying to get the music done as quickly as possible then we can move on to the choreography and trying out costumes and rehearsing for the show on stage.”
U.K. Steps Up To Host Despite Ukraine’s 2022 Eurovision Win
By tradition, the country that wins Eurovision hosts the competition the following year. In 2022, Ukraine won with The Kalush Orchestra’s “Stefania.” While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted his country to host the 2023 contest, the European Broadcasting Union selected the U.K. as substitute host, deeming it too dangerous to have the annual event in Ukraine.
“We are thankful that Britain is going to organize this and make it happen,” says Hutsuliak. The promos for the 2023 Eurovision will feature the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag inside the traditional heart-shaped logo, even though the competition is being held in the U.K.
Tvorchi and the delegation from Ukraine will have to travel from their besieged country to Liverpool, where the Eurovision final will be held on May 13 at the M&S Bank Arena. The duo has already been to London for a performance at the O2 Arena last fall, held to raise funds to buy military equipment for Ukraine.
While the country is under attack by air, there are no flights coming in or out of Ukrainian airports. “We can only travel by car or train,” says Hutsuliak. “Before Putin’s invasion, it took four or five hours to fly to London. [For the O2 performance] it took us 24 hours to get there. We traveled by car to the airport in Krakow, Poland and then we flew to Warsaw. Then we caught another plane to London.”
Even in London, the electronic duo struggled to avoid the feeling of trauma. “You hear a plane flying overhead and you get scared or anxious for no reason,” says Hutsuliak. “But it was nice to meet Ukrainians who lived in our country before the invasion, and it is nice to interact with them. There are Ukrainian people who live in Berlin, in London, in Portugal and in Spain and we appreciated sharing emotions and being in the moment.”
Both members of Tvorchi say it is important to continue making music and appearing on a global platform such as Eurovision. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to spread our message as well as represent the country,” Kenny tells Billboard. “Ukrainians don’t want to be pitied,” adds Hutsuliak. “You need to look at us and get inspired, be united and help so we can help you tomorrow.”
The duo has raised money for the Ukranian army and urges others to donate money and equipment, and to stream music from Ukrainian artists. (Among the platforms receiving donations is one organized by President Zelensky, United24.)
Tvorchi’s song for Eurovision, “Heart of Steel,” was inspired by the siege of Azovstal in Mariupol when the Ukrainian army defended the steel and iron works there, holding out for 82 days under brutal conditions before finally surrendering in May. The lyrics are also a warning about nuclear warfare. Tvorchi is keenly aware that Eurovision was originally created to peacefully unite the nations of Europe several years after the end of World War II.
“Heart Of Steel” is not Tvorchi’s first song inspired by the conflict with Russia. In the first months after the invasion began, they wrote a song called “Boremosia” whose lyrics include:
We fight and will win over everyone
the bullets are flying but we are strong
we fight, the worlds are divided
the voices for freedom have become as one
Last June, Tvorchi performed “Boremosia” for army soldiers in a camp, on a stage atop a big truck. “They opened the place where they usually store some ammunition,” says Hutsuliak “It was very valuable for us to be there to talk with the [soldiers] and support each other, to share the emotions and just be in the moment.”
One year ago, singers, songwriters, producers, guitarists, drummers and bandura players from Ukraine were making the transition from being musicians to soldiers, refugees and volunteers.
In interviews with Billboard, they complained of headaches and stress as they navigated their new daily routines of sheltering from bombing attacks. Today, the entire group of 14, from veteran rock star Oleg Skrypka to emerging rapper alyona alyona, are safe and healthy, though weary from navigating the pressures of balancing recording and touring careers with drawing attention to the Ukrainian cause. They are providing help and resources to the soldiers protecting them from Russian forces while working to ensure their families are out of danger.
As the country prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of the invasion on Feb. 24, Billboard followed up with the Ukrainians featured in last year’s story. War has changed their lives in dramatically different ways. Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the singer-songwriter behind Boombox, is a soldier. The electro-folk duo ONUKA fled the country and relocated to Switzerland to preserve their mental health. Through a translator, Natalia Rybka-Parkhomenko of folk group Kurbasy tells how her brother returned home briefly to Lviv before going back to his military post. “He said the sausage at the petrol station is something unbelievable that he enjoys,” she says. “The shower, the washing machine, the heating system. We take it for granted. The art of small things brings you happiness.” For these musicians, those small things include making new songs, playing gigs and marketing their music on social media.
Andriy Khlyvnyuk
On the February day when Khlyvnyuk, 43, connects with Billboard from Kyiv, he is crashing at his sparsely furnished apartment. At one point, he pulls back his phone camera to show baggage and equipment strewn about the floor. The following day, he is to return to the front line, where he operates drones to identify and kill Russians. “It flies 400 meters high and it can fly 20 miles,” he says. “I’m more or less secure.” In two weeks, Khlyvnyuk will take a break from war to temporarily resume his lifelong occupation as the singer-songwriter for Boombox, which collaborated last year with Pink Floyd on the Ukrainian war song “Stand Up.” The group will soon tour North America for three weeks. Khlyvnyuk is a musician. He writes songs. How does he mentally process the killing of enemy soldiers? “I think all of us will have to go to the doctor when this s— ends,” Khlyvnyuk says.
Andriy Khlyvnyuk, front man of Boombox photographed March 24, 2022 in Kyiv.
Sasha Maslov
alyona alyona
Following delays due to the war and the pandemic, alyona alyona, the 31-year-old schoolteacher-turned-rapper best known for her 2018 viral hit, “Rybky,” was finally able to tour Europe and the United States last year. It was just part of her punishing travel schedule. Between gigs, she lives with her parents 40 minutes from Kyiv for roughly a week out of every month, then resides in Poland for another week for easy access to planes and airports. When she has extra time, she volunteers to visit Ukrainians in cities throughout Europe to give information about supporting the cause and helping refugees. “I live everywhere but nowhere,” she says. “It was gypsy life.” Early this year, her body demanded she take a break from the intensity and anxiety; her constant tooth-grinding had necessitated an operation. For a month, she shut out music and the war and spent time with her boyfriend and visited her grandfather. She returns to Europe for a tour later this month. “You have to think about yourself or you get sick,” she says, from a studio in Gdansk, Poland, where she is working on new tracks. “I know many Ukrainians feel the same.”
Alyona Alyona, Ukrainian rapper photographed March 23, 2022 in Kyiv.
Sasha Maslov
Kurbasy
No longer operating a shelter in Lviv’s Les Kurbas Theatre, Rybka-Parkhomenko and Mariia Oneshchak of folk group Kurbasy have pivoted to staging musical productions for 60 people nightly from Thursday to Sunday. Two young actors in their troupe left for the front line of the war, including one in a “very hot spot,” as Oneshchak calls it, speaking via Telegram with a translator. The student-soldier regularly texts photos and messages from the front. Like all Ukrainians, they’ve recalibrated their lives according to the whims of Russian bombing runs, which wake them up at 3 a.m. Oneshchak mentions a new military cemetery near her home. “She doesn’t look at it very often,” the translator says, “but still she notices how fast it grows. That is something she can’t get used to.” Adds Rybka-Parkhomenko: “When the victory will come, we won’t celebrate very loudly. We probably will just cry and sing about those heroes that we lost.”
From left: Mariia Oneshchak and Natalia Rybka-Parkhomenko of band Kurbasy photographed March 25, 2022 in Lviv.
Sasha Maslov
Yulia Yurina and Yana Polupanova
Kyiv studio-turned-shelter Masterskaya, where singer Yulia Yurina was living with another two dozen musicians after the Russian invasion, has closed. Yurina, who became regionally famous when her band YUKO competed in Ukraine’s national final for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, and Yana Polupanova, Masterskaya’s marketing director, are back to living in apartments. “All the recent Russian attacks, we have seen by our own eyes,” Yurina says during a Telegram call with a translator. “It creates a lot of problems, but life is precious.” Yurina, 28, has spent the past year organizing charity concerts, many of which are located in underground shelters, as well as teaching folk music and folklore as part of a program called Muzykuvannya. “Every day we are scared less and less, but it is not normal to wait for some kind of explosion,” says Polupanova, 27. “It is still putting us in a stress all the time.”
Astronata
Since electronic artists Nata Smirina and Ilya Misyura fled Lviv last April to live in Aarau, Switzerland, Smirina’s debilitating migraines have mostly subsided. “I’m not sure when the joy of living came back to me, specifically,” says Smirina, 31, who runs a clothing brand called hochusobitake and donates some proceeds to the war effort. “You don’t have these air alarms five times a day, really loud. People do not know. They’re 500 kilometers from the border and they do not even have this idea of what war is, and it’s happening not too far from here.” After crossing the border — an immigration officer interviewed Misyura, a Russian citizen who opposes the Ukrainian invasion, for two hours — they soon realized they had to compensate for the higher cost of living in Switzerland. So Misyura partially paused his longtime career as a producer and took a job as a scientific researcher at a university. They’ve since regained the emotional strength to make music again, putting out tracks by their electronic bands Astronata and purpurpeople. “It was like an opening to me,” says Smirina, who still hopes to marry Misyura someday, possibly in Portugal. “It’s crazy important for a person to have this feeling of safety ground under your feet. It gives you so much strength.”
Volodymyr Voyt
Halfway through a brief WhatsApp call, Volodymyr Voyt picks up one of his 15 banduras, a traditional Ukrainian instrument that combines elements of a zither and a lute, and begins strumming. This one was made in 1929, he says, and he has recovered all of them since fleeing from Kyiv to Lviv last year. “We are somewhat used to living in these conditions,” says Voyt, 43, who lives with his wife, Ruslana, also a bandurist, and his 3-year-old daughter, Tereza. Earlier that day, his family had to flee to a shelter in their apartment for seven minutes, although air-raid sirens can last as long as five hours. Tereza attends kindergarten and occasionally retreats to a basement shelter with no light. “This is very hard, I think,” Voyt says. Voyt toured Europe last year with the 100-plus-member Hryhory Verjovka Ukrainian National Folkloric Ensemble, then returned to Kyiv in June. Ruslana has been playing with the local NAONI Orchestra at local concert halls, and Voyt says, “Sometimes we have [an] alarm, and the concert [stops] and people must go in the basement.”
Vera Logdanidi
Splitting time between Kyiv and Budapest, Hungary, the DJ spent much of last year performing at electronic-music festivals and concerts. “Kyiv is my home and I have a lot of friends, I have a flat, I have some tasks to do,” says Logdnanidi, 34, who lives with her husband in Budapest while her mother lives in Kyiv. “It’s not like I finished my story with Ukraine and decided to leave.” She played a club gig last December in her hometown, although the curfews made it more difficult, as events must be completed before the streets close at 10 p.m. “It was super-cool to see people drinking, having fun,” she recalls. “But, you know, you have a shadow.”
Oleg Skrypka
Weary and red-faced in his Kyiv apartment building, with flickering power and a spotty internet connection, Skrypka, the frontman for popular Ukrainian rock band Vopli Vidopliasova, flashes a charismatic smile as he showcases his wartime resilience. “My generator works for hours,” he explains. “There is no petrol. So I went to put petrol in the generator. So now it works.” Skrypka has been touring Europe for much of the past year, obtaining permission from the Ukrainian government on each trip to take a train to Poland and access international airports. “Yeah, I am very tired. But it’s like that,” he says. “I understand it’s much more difficult to be here, on the front. My friends, or friends of my friends, they’re in very, very hard situations.” The band’s guitarist, who is in the army, was “lightly traumatized” and had to go to a military hospital, then back to Kyiv for two weeks. He reunited with Skrypka for a few concerts before returning to the army, Skrypa says.
1914
Now and then, Dmytro Kumar, frontman for the Ukrainian death-metal band 1914, messages Basil Lagenndorf to ask how things are going. “Fine, guys,” responds the band’s guitarist, who is serving in the military: He operates a grenade launcher at the front. “Tell my wife I’m OK. Keep on going.” Minus Lagenndorf, the band spent much of 2022 playing festivals and clubs in Europe, trying to draw attention to and raise support for the Ukrainian cause. But the experience isn’t the same as it used to be — and not just because fans sometimes upbraid Kumar for talking too much about war while on stage. “You’re checking your phones, you’re seeing this bombing and you call and say, ‘We will be home.’ You’re stressed every time,” says Kumar, 40, speaking by phone from his home in Lviv one evening when the electricity is more reliable. “You’re playing music because you must, not because it’s your dream and you [have] a lot of fun.”
ONUKA
After briefly moving to Warsaw to obtain travel documents for a U.S. tour last year, electronic musicians Nata Zhyzhchenko, 37, and Eugene Filatov, 39, of electro-folk band ONUKA, were forced to leave their two-year-old son, Alex, with a nanny at their Kyiv home. “It was the first day rockets were shelling Kyiv, just at night,” Zhyzhchenko recalls on a messaging app from the couple’s apartment on the sixth floor, as the sun sets through a large window. “When you are outside, especially when your child or parents or family is here, it’s very hard to accept.” (Alex’s first words were a Ukrainian phrase meaning “the light was gone.”) Determined to stay in Kyiv despite the “lizard-brain” realities of “run, hide, eat, sleep,” as Filatov describes them, the couple has made a single and video drawing connections between the current war and the 1932 Soviet-induced Holodomor, or Great Famine, in Ukraine. “When you have the work, it’s a great pleasure, because you have to do something and not concentrate just on power, light and alarm-siren issues,” Zhyzhchenko says.
The Eastern European country of Belarus has adopted a law that essentially legalizes piracy of music and other forms of copyrighted entertainment, which could make it a hotbed for piracy well beyond its borders.
Under the law, which President Alexander Lukashenko approved in early January, copyrighted music, films and other audiovisual content originating from “unfriendly countries” can be used in Belarus without permission from rights holders.
The law doesn’t provide a list of “unfriendly countries.” But based on the Belarusian government’s previous statements, the legislation primarily targets Western nations, which slapped sanctions on Belarus following mass repressions of people for protesting the rigged presidential vote in 2020 and, more recently, because of Belarus’ support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Belarus has never been a major music market — it does not show up in the IFPI’s ranking of the 62 biggest markets — and the major global labels had traditionally run operations there from their Russian offices. Since the labels pulled out of Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they have also cut ties with Belarus. The country, which sits between Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south, backed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion last year by allowing Russia to launch part of its attack from Belarusian territory.
Despite its small stature in the music industry, analysts say that under the government’s piracy-permitting law Belarus could play an outsized role in spurring more global piracy.
“As Belarus is a very small music market — a rounding error in the global market — there will be little direct impact in terms of music revenues for western rights holders,” says Mark Mulligan, music analyst at MIDiA Research.
“What might be impactful though is whether piracy networks start to operate from Belarus, distributing globally but operating under the protection of Belarussian law.”
The music industry is already dealing with a spate of piracy networks based in Russia and surrounding countries that are distributing pirated content to other markets, sometimes on other continents. Among the best-known operations are the stream-ripping websites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, run by Tofig Kurbanov, who reportedly lives in southern Russia.
More than two dozen record labels and the RIAA have pursued Kurbanov in the U.S. for copyright damages. Last February, a U.S. district judge in Alexandria, Va., approved an $82.9 million judgement against the Russian for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings. The court found that Kurbanov’s operation drew more than 300 million users from around the world to his sites in a single year. (Kurbanov says he plans to appeal.)
And in Brazil, Paulo Rosa, IFPI affiliate Pro Música’s president, told Billboard in 2021 that most of the fake streams being peddled to consumers in the South American country originate from hacker operations in Russia.
The Belarusian piracy law could nevertheless set an example for neighboring Russia, which for months has been considering a similar move to legalize copyrighted content from certain Western countries. Since the early 2000s, Russia has often followed the example of Belarus in strengthening authoritarian rule.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a press conference on December 19, 2022.
Contributor/GI
Before the war with Ukraine, Russia had the 13th-largest music market in 2020 with revenues of $328 million, a 58% bump from 2019; it was the fastest-growing market in the world in 2019 and 2020, according to the IFPI.
While Russia’s relations with the West are at their lowest point since Cold War, and many Western companies have left the country, the legalization of piracy would likely further isolate Russia — and could “set back the Russian music industry by decades,” one person at a global music company tells Billboard.
In recent years, Russia had made a substantial effort to shed its reputation as a place where piracy ran rampant. VK, the Russian analog of Facebook, which for years allowed users to share unlicensed music tracks on the platform, eventually cleaned up its act and signed license agreements with global majors a few years ago.
Now that the majors have left Russia, dozens of pirated albums have already been reappearing on VK, including recent releases from Taylor Swift (Midnights, on Universal Music Group’s Republic Records) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Return of the Dream Canteen, on Warner Music Group’s Warner Records).
The legalization of piracy would certainly make it harder for Western streaming services to start operating in Russia again, says Mulligan. While Russia is still “earlier in its streaming development,” he says, “longer term it could become a significant market and at that stage Western rightsholders would want to ensure that their music is being paid for when it is being consumed at scale.”
New laws legalizing piracy would fly in the face of treaty commitments made by both Belarus and Russia. Both countries are signatories to the Berne Convention and other World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)-administered treaties.
“Suspending IP protection as Belarus is presently considering would violate its obligations under these WIPO treaties and would seriously dampen Belarus’ opportunities to become integrated into the global trade community and to secure [Most Favored Nation] status, or to further integrate with the [European Union], thus minimizing its economic opportunities in the long term,” says Neil Turkewitz, president of Turkewitz Consulting Group.
Also, “any actions legalizing piracy would destroy any chance of investment in local creative industries and would hurt local artists and their fans the most,” the IFPI tells Billboard in a statement. “Such actions would be in clear breach of international copyright law and trade agreements.”
The Metropolitan Opera in New York will mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a concert to remember victims of the war.
Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Soprano Golda Schultz, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, tenor Dmytro Popov, and Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi will be the soloists at the Feb. 24 performance.
“Mozart’s Requiem is to remember the innocent victims of the war, and Beethoven’s Fifth is in anticipation of the victory to come,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said in a statement Friday (Jan. 20).
The concert will be broadcast on radio and will be presented in association with the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. All tickets cost $50 and go on sale Feb. 1, and the Met is encouraging ticket buyers to make donations to Ukraine relief efforts.
After years of trying to clean up its act and shed its reputation as a major source of pirated music, Russian streaming service VK is allowing users to upload albums released on major record labels that exited Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
A search by Billboard on Dec. 7 found that dozens of albums from major labels were were available to all VK users and could be found using the service’s search tool. They included Taylor Swift‘s Midnights, released by Universal Music Group’s Republic Records, and Red Hot Chili Pepper‘s Return of the Dream Canteen, a Warner Records Music release.
VK did not reply to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Global labels body IFPI in London did not immediately condemn the apparent copyright violations, nor confirm if they or its label members had issued takedown orders to VK in recent days. “We’re continuously monitoring the situation in Russia with regard to unauthorized services and will take appropriate action as necessary,” an IFPI spokesperson said.
Sony, Warner and Universal all declined to comment. “It’s disappointing and wrong but comes as no surprise considering [Russia’s] current lack of respect for rights or the rule of law,” one senior industry executive told Billboard.
Courtesy Photo
Just some of the pirated Taylor Swift music featured on VK.
Courtesy Photo
Launched as VKontakte in 2007 in St. Petersburg, VK offers music and other features of a social media platform. As of last month, it was the sixth most-popular web site in Russia, according Similarweb, a website tracking company. It is the second most-popular platform offering music in Russia after Yandex.Music.
In the first quarter, VK had 73.4 million monthly average users and a global audience of 100.4 million. The platform offers both an ad-sponsored model and a subscription service with 3.5 million subscribers, according to the most-recent data available. (Before pulling out, Spotify reportedly had 600,000 paid subscribers in Russia.)
VK’s history of piracy is well noted. When VK emerged as Russia’s response to Facebook, it had a feature that Facebook didn’t — a tool allowing users to upload music tracks that immediately became available to all other users.
That feature was, arguably, one of the reasons why VK quickly became popular with younger users. However, it also made the social network an archenemy of international major labels who accused it of facilitating online piracy.
A range of lawsuits were brought against VK, but the company stood its ground, claiming it had no technical capability to control user-generated content but was willing to remove any copyrighted content at rights holders’ request. The problem was that if a pirated music track was removed, another copy of it would be almost immediately added by another user.
For a while, courts accepted VK’s argument about its inability to control user-generated content, but an array of lawsuits eventually forced VK to sign licensing deals with the majors and the streaming platform got rid of user-generated pirated music a few years ago.
Then in March, in support of Western sanctions to penalize Russia for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Sony, Warner and Universal said they were suspending operations in Russia, and their new releases were no longer available on VK. That same month, Amazon, Deezer, Spotify and TikTok either closed their Russian offices or stopped trading in what was previously the 13th largest music market. (YouTube, for its part, suspended all monetization programs for users in Russia in March.) Among major global music providers, only Believe, the French music distributor, has continued to operate in Russia, saying in September that it was doing so “to support its artists, labels and protect its people’s safety as well as ensure access to music production and distribution.”
The pullout by the global music industry slowed the legal development of a market that Spotify, in particular, had targeted as a key country in its expansion into Eastern and Central Europe. Russia was the fastest-growing market among the global top 20 both in 2019 and 2020, when it produced $328 million in recorded-music revenue, a 58% increase over 2020, according to IFPI.
Some Russian officials have called for a regulation that would permit the use of music and movies whose rights holders have left Russia. The most popular proposal was that all royalties owed to foreign rights holders who left Russia would be held in a dedicated account in Russian rubles and then distributed at some point in the future. Nothing concrete has been done in that area so far, but the Russian government has authorized imports of products by companies which left Russia. They cannot be technically sold in Russia, but they are imported via third countries.
Under current Russian law, the use of music or movies without permission from rights holders remains illegal.
Additional Reporting By Richard Smirke
KYIV, UKRAINE — “Respect my borders,” the large entry stamp reads, pressed in bold black block letters down my forearm.
Here, a massive courtyard is flanked on one side by a crumbly brick building well over a hundred years old and on the other side by the yellowing building’s new, stainless-steel addition. Techno is pulsating through the open door of the building — the leading techno club in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The space officially has no name. Located at the edge of Kyiv inside a former brewery, the club’s logo and de facto identifying mark is a mathematical sign, ∄, used in high-level calculus to indicate the value for a formula that does not exist. It also reflects the club’s interest in self-promotion — nonexistent. For pronunciation and reference, Kyiv’s techno community knows ∄ as “K41,” a moniker that combines the venue’s street name and building number.
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And in keeping with the ∄ symbol’s meaning, team members at the club don’t want to insert themselves into the club’s bigger story — they prefer to remain anonymous and peripheral to their venue and community. “Instead,” several from this group explain to Billboard, “we are all just members of the ∄ team.”
Though initially intended to remind guests that despite the world of possibility inside the club, personal boundaries are to be observed and respected, my entry stamp’s commandment has taken new meaning since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. It is a reminder that Ukraine is in an existential fight for its existence.
The ongoing invasion ended ∄’s latest season, called Dance.Delivery, just two days before its scheduled opening weekend in this past February. But on Oct. 15, after nearly eight months of war, ∄ reopened its doors to Kyiv for the first time and revived the canceled season, in a defiant display of Ukrainian resiliency during the war.
At the Oct. 15 event, hundreds of club goers clad mostly in black revel on the dance floor. For many, their first time clubbing in nearly eight months provides an outlet for joy and the release that comes from dancing together. “The crowd today is different,” one of ∄’s team members says. A palpable lightness filled the space. “Less naked bodies,” she quips. “Maybe because it’s the first event, maybe it’s because of the music today; it’s calmer.”
Much of the building’s original texture is preserved. Dancefloors and soundsystems are woven into the brewery’s architecturally complex interior, which has been fashioned into nine separate dance spaces that can altogether host upwards of 15,000 attendees. Original 1870s-era logo mosaics are juxtaposed against glittering glass-and-tile DJ booths and pits that once housed enormous copper brewing vats are transformed into vast, pool-like seating areas.
The front lines of the war are hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian capital. And while the city is slowly removing the concrete-and-sandbag checkpoints and steel vehicle obstacles it had scrambled into place during the early days of the Russian invasion, the decision to reopen ∄ and revive its aborted season did not come easy.
On Oct. 10, just days before the planned reopening, early morning blasts shook the Ukrainian capital awake as Russian rockets and missiles struck civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities throughout Ukraine. The attack in Kyiv killed at least eight people and wounded scores of others. ∄’s team wrestled with their desire to revive techno in Kyiv. Could they kick off the canceled Dance.Delivery season? Should they go forward with the event?
All of Ukraine is currently under martial law, a response to the Russian invasion that provides the legal framework necessary for curtailing movement during the war. Military-age males are not allowed to leave the country and large gatherings like sporting events are forbidden.
Kyiv’s ∄ club
Kateryna Smirnova
After deciding to move ahead, ∄’s team members opted to cap the first installment of Dance.Delivery at a few hundred attendees, opening just one of the venue’s spaces to keep the event intimate and out of concern for guest safety amidst potential Russian shelling. And rather than throwing a typical night event, the space opened in the afternoon and closed its doors before 10 p.m. in order not to run afoul of Kyiv’s city-wide nighttime curfew restrictions.
Practical hurdles had to be overcome as well. During the early days of the Russian invasion, ∄’s team members took advantage of the former brewery’s thick concrete and brick architecture, transforming the building into an ersatz bomb shelter and temporary housing for the displaced. Sound equipment and DJ booths were moved to make space for bunkbeds and cots.
One of ∄’s sound engineers voiced his worry that sound equipment might not work because of humidity exposure during its nearly eight months of storage. “If the electricity cuts out because of a blackout or any other reason,” he says, hinting at the slight but genuine possibility of an explosion somewhere in the city, “we have backup generators. We’ll be fine.”
The first installment of Dance.Delivery was thus undoubtedly far from typical — but it was a defiant and resounding success. As afternoon turned to evening, dancers gradually fill up ∄, with a mishmash of fresh, youthful faces mixed in with ∄’s veteran crowd all moving to sets by Ukrainian artists Cantrust and Human Margareeta. Three flavors of dress prevailed: blacks and whites, leathers and fishnets, and not much at all.
A Small But Growing Scene
Ukraine’s techno scene is smaller than scenes in other European cities, but it’s burgeoning — and no less fervent. Though relatively new, ∄ offers a space for the kind of easy abandon enjoyed by techno communities in Berlin or London. At the former brewery in Kyiv, clubbers and dancers enjoy the freedom to experience music, dance and community, restricted only by the boundaries other visitors make for themselves, boundaries that are scrupulously respected.
For Vlad Shast, an exuberant 40-something drag queen and one of the club’s wide ensemble of standout regulars, ∄ is a profoundly meaningful space — and not just because of the music. “Before K41 opened, I never felt like I had a place where I belonged,” Shast explains between stints on the dancefloor. Shast has been fixture at ∄ since the space opened in 2019 and is closely involved with ∄’s ХІТЬ, a word that translates to “lust,” and the name of a regular queer party series the club held before the Russian invasion.
“I can show my inner creator and be fully accepted by people around me. I can be truly myself, truly me,” he says of ∄’, twirling the edge of a translucent gossamer dress he made in February before the Russian invasion, specifically for the first installment of ∄’s Dance.Delivery season. “After the beginning of the war, I didn’t have time to realize how much [the club] meant to me,” Shast adds, brushing strands of an ornate, homemade headdress made of woven black zip ties away from his face.
But, he acknowledges, at first, after the rocket attacks, he couldn’t imagine going back to ∄. “I felt like I would be dancing on people’s graves,” he says.
After deep conversations with ∄’s organizers and friends, Shast concluded that reopening is a question of prioritization. Following the rocket attacks in the capital, “we were so focused on the dead,” Shast says. And while this is entirely understandable for a community so directly faced with the challenges of war, “we should be focused on the living,” he says.
The decision to reopen is one that Shast appreciates. It was only during the middle of the party, “when I had a moment by myself, that I fully felt what the Russians took away from me,” Shast says. The invasion, he continues, took away the “ability to share my art, my ability to connect with my people, my ability to connect with my community.”
For him, this night on ∄’s dancefloor was a celebration of life, not a commemoration of death.
A Tie to Berghain and German Ravers
The space has a deep connection to Germany. ∄’s founders tapped the same group that designed the world capital of techno — Berlin’s Berghain — for their space. In 2020 and 2021, Berliners took weekend trips to Kyiv en mass to escape Germany’s strict Covid lockdowns and Berlin’s shuttered techno clubs.
Cognizant of both the techno scene’s particular proclivities as well as the increasingly international audience that ∄ pulls into its orbit — international acts including LSDXOXO, Ben UFO, and DJ Stingray have all played there — the club passes out fliers to partygoers in Ukrainian and English that explain how various drugs can interact if taken together, how to prevent overdosing and hangovers, and how to navigate sexual consent while partying. Other cards carefully explain what to do if stopped by police, citizens’ rights, and how police in Ukraine are allowed to interact with people on the street.
Several of ∄’s team members sought refuge in Berlin during the early days of the Russian invasion. And though grateful for the initial support Germany offered Ukrainians fleeing war, many Ukrainians who came to Germany had what they call a profoundly frustrating, even maddening experience during their stay.
“Before the Russian invasion, I thought Europeans were very privileged,” a ∄ team member explains over a beer at ∄’s bar. “Affordable health insurance and a high standard of living” are certainly things to be admired, she says, draining her beer and setting it resolutely on the bar counter. “But now I know that Ukrainians are the ones that are privileged.”
When asked why, she stares me dead in the eye. In this war, “Ukrainians know that pacifism is not an option,” she says, voicing frustration with some European countries commonly heard in Ukraine — and with Germany in particular.
Kyiv’s ∄ club
Kateryna Smirnova
Exasperation is felt particularly acutely towards the clamoring for the laying down of arms and calls for immediate peace — viewpoints many on the ∄ team call increasingly out of step with the reality of battlefields in Ukraine, where civilians are regularly targeted and where evidence of brutal Russian war crimes in recently liberated towns and villages is steadily mounting.
Though some of ∄’s approximately 130 team members are still abroad, many have returned to Ukraine, homeward journeys that brought them back to a country at war. Their reasons for returning are myriad, but the ∄ team member at the bar says that some of their security staff enlisted in the Ukrainian army and are now fighting at the front lines.
∄ is throwing everything it has behind its friends and family fighting at the front. This first Dance.Delivery event ultimately raised 150,855 Ukrainian hryvnia (nearly $4,100) through donations at the door. The money went towards the Hospitallers paramedic group, a Ukrainian organization of volunteer paramedics.
Just two days after the first installment of Dance.Delivery, another series of explosions ripped through downtown Kyiv, striking cultural sites, one of the city’s primary power substations, and other non-military infrastructure. The attack killed at least four people and injured dozens more — a stark reminder that despite the weekend’s semblance of normalcy, conflict elsewhere in the country has not ended.
“Our building survived two world wars,” one of ∄’s team members explains. “I hope it will survive this war too.” Yet, despite the air raid alarms and the explosions, for a single night, both ∄ and Kyiv were alive — and dancing.
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